cjbowser

I think that the current stock of the BGB was a victim of Chaosium's recent huge sale. It will most likely be reprinted in the future.

So what do you think of Magic World? I have only been involved with D100 since September last year but when I made the move from D&D I was looking for the easiest way to break in. I bought RQ6, BGB and Magic World all at the same time but now 9 months later I have read Magic World twice and still haven't finished the others. I admit I found the BGB daunting and even more so RQ6 but Magic World was a dream and in my opinion easier to break into than either D&D 2e or 3e. And I think that's true despite it including only modest setting info.

 

Magic World is a great example of taking options from the BGB, marrying it to a setting or genre, and turning everything into a coherent, playable game. I really like Magic World. I do think that the percentile system that underlies BRP makes more sense to me than some iterations of D&D, but the BGB doesn't present it in an easily grokked fashion. That's what Magic World does. It's the game that pulls people in. Then, once they're hooked and understand the basic principles of BRP, they might decide they want to tinker which means they grab the BGB.

 

All that being said, I also like the BGB, for what it is, a collection of BRP options. I've built some fun games from it since it was released. 

The BGB isn't complicated. I've read other rpg's that were a lot more complicated for beginners yet they seem to do quite well. aka 3.5. If you start introducing introductory products for generic BRP settings, you may start to find that the BRB starts to lack in sales, even more so than now. True it has a loyal following here, but a lot of gamers aren't going to spend money on some "advanced" book full of rules they probably won't use. Using the BGB as the core book and publishing setting books around it will cause the book to have more sales.

3.5 is a fairly internally consistent rulebook. The bgb is not internally consistent. It presents a ton of options, some of which are completely incompatible with each other. That would confuse a new person to no end. Even other generic rules like Savage Worlds are internally consistent because it was designed from the ground up. The BGB came ex post facto.

Most of us on these forums learned BRP through Runequest or CoC or Superworld or Worlds of Wonder or ElfQuest or Pendragon etc. Those are all settings that contained the necessary, internally consistent, rules. I know that if I was confronted with the CoC setting book that references a ton of random pages of the bgb, I'd still be playing D&D.

For all the awesome in the BGB, it's not friendly to newcomers.It's for the old hands who already know the system.

I can respect that and others seem to agree with the other view. However I don't see the point in spending money on regurgitating the same thing over and over seems like a waste of time and money both by the publisher and the consumer. What's the point in the BGB then if each generic setting will get its own rulebook?

The bgb is for tinkerers. Those who want to get under the hood and build their own things. However, like most things designed for tinkering, it's not an entry level product. It has nothing to entice the average, never-roleplayed-before consumer. They're looking for exciting settings with realized worlds. If they had to buy a setting book and try to parse the bgb for just the rules they need, they'd move in to something else.

This is something I've been giving a lot of thought to. My opinion is that it needs to be considered on a case by case basis. Some settings are worth considering as full games, others as supplements to the BGB. I' not interested in making any sort of hard and fast rule about this at this point. But I expect in the future you'll see some full games, ala Magic World, and some supplement/setting books ala Mythic Iceland or Blood Tides.

I like the case by case basis approach. That implies each decision will be given due thought and proper consideration. That will allow the line to grow and hopefully spread in popularity.

Alright, that makes more sense. I can understand them not wanting to give out that information especially if it isn't favourable. For instance, saying that a product is selling well (if it is) is fine, but saying that a product isn't selling at all wouldn't be the best strategy. I personally wouldn't spend the energy saying how poorly an item is selling to just some random person who is calling, but would rather use my business skills to upsell that product instead.

The person calling in many cases was the author.

This is pretty much what I was thinking as well. Don't stop them from coming in, but let people buy them as they want them, that way there's very little to do but hopefully pay the contributor. Again, that can be difficult at times, I understand that, but DTRPG records how many of each item you've ever sold, so if they stick by the $250/500 unit pay rate, they could easily keep track of how many of each are sold.

It wasn't a matter of the software keeping track or not, it was a matter of them not wanting/caring to give out that info.

I always thought that monographs should be handled similar to Apple's App Store.

Anyone can submit a monograph to the site and set the price for it. It goes through a quick-glance review just to make sure it is what it claims to be. If approved, it sells on the store with a 70/30% split between the author and Chaosium.

There is already a rating system built in so users can regulate the market. Author is in charge of the product including layout and design.

There could be even be an "SDK" full of clip art and royalty free artwork and fonts to use for the design of things.

 

Chaosium couldn't even give you an accurate number of how  many they sold if you called and asked, so any sort of profit sharing plan means the creator will never get paid.

 

I have a feeling that monographs will be considered part of the ancien regime, and something the new management will try to get away from. While there were occasional gems, most weren't worth the money. Those gems can be handled through the standard submission process.

I've just checked on Chaosium's website. The BGB seems to be out of stock. Is it recent or it's been for a long time?

It was in stock when the big sale started.

I think the BGB could do with some clean up and editing to make it painfully aware to newbies who are looking at the book for the first time that this is a tool kit with sometimes contradictory offerings.

Then it needs kick ass setting books. Those are what will sell the line. Right now, in the shelves, we have very few options from the publisher of the BGB. We have more (and often better) options from Alephtar. There needs to be a sci-fi book next to Magic World. A superhero one. A post apocalyptic book. And so on and so forth. Call of Cthulhu was completely stand alone, so no player of that game has a need to look at the BGB.

And monographs don't count. They are of wildly varying quality that has rightly earned them the sub title, "caveat emptor." And, you could only get them from Chaosium for the longest time. So, in several ways, they did nothing to sell the BGB.

Maybe, if the new bosses can save the ship, BRP can eventually return to a place of prominence.

Hmmm, my author copy supposedly shipped late last week or early this week. I haven't yet seen it. I'll give it another week before I get concerned, but its total disappearance from the website after the splashy announcement is strange.

P.S. -- Checked the Chaosium website. Mission to Epsilon is still advertised on the main page but has vanished from the alphabetical listing of BRP product where one would actually order it. Not sure what to make of that. Deemed a lackluster effort and cancelled? Overwhelmed by orders and temporarily removed until they can restock it?

The Chaosium catalog now seems to remove an item when it's out of stock. However, based on the text of the sale notice, I don't think it's being reprinted. At least not in the near future.

It might be in Chaosium's interest to put all the monographs up on DTRPg with a POD option. That way they would lose the DTRPG slice of revenue but gain the revenue from people who wont buy a pdf but will buy a POD copy.

 

A move to onebookshelf could also provide an opportunity to set up POD/PDF bundles. That would be nice.

But they'll still be available as pdfs, yes? Because some of them are really good.  

 

As far as CoC7 goes, it seems like three steps forward, one step back and a jump to the left. And twirl.

 

I'd imagine PDF monographs will continue to be sold, at least of existing titles, because there's little cost associated with selling them.

 

 

Focus on those core product lines, and monographs and additional material to compliment them. 

 

Monographs are no longer part of Chaosium's business strategy. That's why they're 50% off and in the category of things that won't be reprinted.

Unfortunately they only did what seemed like a limited playtest where the only ones playtesting where ones who were going to tell them how great it was no matter what.

 

 

That's not entirely true. If you check the copyright page of the Keeper's book, many of the people in the first paragraph provided very critical feedback of the book. In some cases, they provided 12 page written documents outlining some potential issues.

It's strange that there are no quotes from Charlie in Chaosium's announcement. Let's hope for the better.

Charlie is no longer with Chaosium. Sandy mentioned it in a post on yog-sothoth and Charlie confirmed it on his Facebook page.

You mention selling it on drivethru. One important thing to bear in mind is that not all d100 games are open content. You can't take anything from the closed content games without violating their copyright. And that won't endear you to the d100 fans.

Does it have modern professions/skill packages as well?

 

It doesn't have any new professions, but it does have new skills.

 

 

 

Besides the stats, some good topics could be like various weapons types vs various armor, ie, bludgeon weapon vs certain armor as oppossed to an impaling or slasthing weapon against that same armor, what's the difference. Or the theory of slashing vs impaling... more strength generated from a swing vs a thrust. Then maybe some discussion on the quality of ingredients and weapon quality,  like damascus steel and where was ore retrieved from or maybe it was the overall process.

 

 

 

I devote a few hundred words to Damascended steel in an upcoming book. It's by no means comprehensive, but it does give an overview.

I'd think the most effective ways would be a combined CI/CDA weapons book. Maybe even go whole hog and do a pre-modern weapon book.

How would you convert the characters from "In Search of the Trollslayer" to the recommended heroic level? Add 12 points onto their chracteristics or soften the encounters a little?

 

I ran In Search of the Trollslayer with newly created Magic World characters when MW first came out. I didn't need to change any aspects of the characters for them to survive.

Actually, they are a cunning way to make the game similar to D&D, which is now based on such a mechanics. Bonus die in D&D Next has been widely criticised and is not as elegant a mechanics as it sounds initially. And trying to appeal to the D&D crew has never been a success factor for CoC in the past.

As Cam said, the OQ way is much simpler, and allows you to inflict more than one penalty at a time without being clunky.

 

Trying to appeal to the D&D crew isn't quite right, to be honest. The advantage/disadvantage mechanic existed in CoC7 long before the D&D playtests were released. It wasn't a matter of CoC7 copying D&D5  so much as a case of parallel evolution.

 

Whether or not that mechanic works for you is a completely different story. 

 

I like some of the changes to CoC7, there are others I don't care. My personal favorite, however, has to be the reworking of Credit Rating.

Check the downloads section: http://basicroleplaying.org/files/category/58-halo/

Also, if you track down Corum there are some great magic systems in there.

 

Corum is very good. And not hard at all to track down. It's ~$12 at Chaosium. http://www.chaosium.com/corum/

This isn't so much a Lovecraftian reference as a reference to Lovecraft, but I thought it was interesting.

 

There's an article about Lovecraft's interest in astronomy in the newest issue of Sky and Telescope.